


how to not confess your love to your boyfriend

by orphan_account, potteraeken



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, M/M, Theo Raeken & Malia Tate Friendship, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, and also hostility, this is a failed attempt at humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/potteraeken/pseuds/potteraeken
Summary: Liam is an idiot, Theo is an even bigger idiot. They're both in love....or the one in which Theo gives Liam a pendant, that's a little more complex than it looks. (quite like Theo himself)
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 12
Kudos: 78





	1. 1.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vhandyne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vhandyne/gifts).



> i am aware this is a little out of character and has no plot whatsoever but i wanted to write a silly little one shot with them being idiots :)

Liam is not sulking. No matter what Mason says– _ lying in bed eating ice cream and crying over shitty rom coms is sulking liam– _ he is  _ not  _ sulking. Mason gave up on getting him out of his room after a few hours because Corey called–apparently  _ Corey _ is now more important to him than Liam, his  _ best friend  _ since they were like 5–and also maybe because Liam couldn't bear to hear the two of them talk and be all  _ cute _ when his own boyfriend was being a dick and so he may have told Mason to leave but that's  _ okay _ . Liam doesn't need him or anyone for that matter, cause he's perfectly fine and not sulking or missing a certain chimera of death. Nope. No missing any reformed ex-murderers here. No sir.

Liam is totally sulking and missing his asshole of a boyfriend. 

Sighing for what felt like the hundredth time, laying on his bed and staring at his boring white ceiling, Liam thinks back to this morning again, when this whole thing started. Theo and Liam fought. Which in itself wasn't a big deal, they kind of fight about everything, it's just  _ them _ , but Theo's face after the fight was something Liam couldn't get out of his mind. There was something in his eyes that told Liam this wasn't just a normal fight. He almost looked like Liam had broken up with him, which was  _ ridiculous _ because they may have only started dating for a few months but Liam was almost ready to  _ propose _ to the chimera, the only thing stopping him was Mason and his mom really, because  _ you're too young for this kind of commitment liam.  _ Bullshit.

He should probably go after Theo but his boyfriend is with Malia and he only knows this because she texted him a simple,  _ “you're on thin fucking ice dunbar”. _

Liam doesn't think their fight warrants this level of threatening from Malia, who had–to the surprise of everyone–taken a liking to Theo after the war and suddenly it was like they've been best friends their entire life, and very  _ protective  _ best friends at that. So yeah, maybe he was scared of the werecoyote, who wouldn't be really?

Lost in thought, Liam doesn't even realize he's fiddling with the chain of the pendant around his neck until he abruptly stops, takes it out from inside his shirt and just stares at it, lips pulling up in an automatic smile that he cannot and doesn't even want to control. Theo had gifted him that pendant on his birthday, and he knows if Mason was here he'd tease him for the lovesick expression on his face but he's _not here_ and even if he were Liam would still smile like an idiot because _Theo gifted_ _him_ _a_ _pendant._

  
  


—  _ A few days earlier _ —

“ _ Come on _ Theo just give it to me already”, Liam whined for like the fifth time in the past ten minutes.

Theo sighs and internally prays to a god he doesn't believe in to give him patience because he's very close to slamming Liam's head on the wall of his apartment.

“You said you'll give me your gift when we go back to your apartment, we're here now so-”

“We've been here  _ two minutes Liam _ ”, the beta looks like he's about to say something again but Theo just grabs his arm and drags him over to the couch in the middle of his apartment, “Sit down and wait”. And before Liam could whine about waiting again he adds, “Just for a minute till i go to my room and get the present. Okay?”

At that Liam finally looks pleased, nodding his head with a huge smile pasted on his face and Theo has to stop a smile from coming on  _ his _ face cause his boyfriend looks like an actual  _ puppy _ sometimes. Theo just shakes his head fondly, walking to his room as Liam waits on the couch, but he can feel Liam's eyes following him the whole way, so he just quickly gets the present from his drawer and walks back out before Liam decides he's done enough waiting.

Sitting down beside the beta, Theo takes a deep breath and hands over the long wrapped box to him. Liam for all his impatience is very careful with the wrapping paper, trying not to rip it and unknowingly settling Theo's nerves by the sweet gesture.

Liam slowly opens the box and his eyes go wide, mouth parting a little, staring at a pendant, a _sunflower_ shaped pendant because Theo is a sap, he carefully picks it up, holds it and keeps _staring._ And Theo's already nervous, Liam not saying anything just makes him _more_ nervous, and that's the only reason he does something very un-theo like, he _rambles,_ “You know it's okay if you don't, you know, like it. I can always give it back. You don't have to wear it. i-”

“Theo  _ shut up _ . I love it”

“...you do?”

“Yes! It's  _ beautiful _ ”, he says looking at the pendant with awe, and then directing an even more reverent look at Theo complete with his blinding smile and Theo  _ swears _ he almost melted. “Thank you”

Theo's shoulders visibly sag, all the tension deflating from his body and Liam, seems to finally take note of just how nervous Theo had been about his gift. He quickly, but  _ carefully _ , places the pendant back inside its box and the box on the coffee table before completely turning towards Theo, cupping his face in his hands and just  _ kissing  _ him, chasing all his worries away by the gentle press of his lips against his own.

“Thank you”, Liam says again after pulling back from the kiss, forehead resting against his. Theo just smiles at him feeling light and happy because Liam  _ loves _ his gift. Pulling back a little more, Liam picks up the locket once more and holds it out to Theo. “Put it on me?”, he asks like Theo can ever say no to him especially when he's  _ beaming _ up at him like he is.

“Of course, sunshine” He watches as Liam's smile gets impossibly bigger at the fond endearment. Taking the locket from his hands, he opens the little lock, puts it around Liam's neck, leans forward and locks it in place. Pulling back, Theo watches as Liam looks down at the pendant resting against his chest, and then looks back up at him, his blue eyes  _ shining  _ with emotion,

“I'm  _ never _ taking this off.”

_ \---------------- _

Liam takes the locket off his neck.

It's  _ not  _ because he had a fight with Theo, because even if they're fighting Liam still  _ adores _ the gift from his boyfriend and he'd be damned if he ever let anything happen to it. So, no, he only takes the pendant off cause he wants to hold it up to the light coming in from his windows and just  _ look  _ at it, because it's truly beautiful. He brushes a hand across the small petals of the sunflower and the small brown glass ball inside the petals, glinting prettily in the soft evening light coming in his room, he's about to put it back on when something on the wall across the window catches his attention. It's the light reflecting from the glass ball in the middle of the pendant and …  _ are those words? _

__ Liam gets up from the bed and tries to see the reflection more clearly but the light's too weak. Which then gives him an idea, so he shuts his blinds, turns off the light, and stumbles around to look for his phone- and okay yeah maybe he should've shut the lights  _ after  _ grabbing his phone. So he turns on the lights, grabs his phone and shuts the lights off  _ again,  _ just to turn on his phone's flashlight and hold it against the glass inside the pendant. And,  _ holy shit. _ Those aren't just words, they're words in  _ different languages.  _ Just as he's scanning the words trying to make sense of what exactly is written there, he hears Mason's voice coming up the stairs.  _ Real good timing Mase. _

“Okay Liam, I  _ know _ you had a fight with your boyfriend or whatever but you need to come out now it's-” , his best friend cuts himself off just as he opens the bedroom door and  _ stares. _

“Those are- ” 

“Words. I know.”

“In different languages.”

"Yes. I noticed. Thanks."

“ _ Several  _ different languages.”

“I  _ know, _ Mase.”

“They're coming from  _ inside  _ your locket? Wait- oh my god.”

“What? Mason,  _ what _ ?”

“This is one of those pendants! The ones that spell out-” , he cuts himself off again resorting to just grab Liam's chin in one hand and face it towards a section of the reflection that's in english - and how did Liam miss  _ that _ section before - and it says,

“I love you”, Liam breathes out.

Everything is quite for a few moments as Liam's brain tries to catch up to the fact that-

“So just for confirmation, this is the pendant that Theo gifted you right?”

“Yep.”

“ _ Intense.” _

“Yeah,  _ intense.” _

“So i guess, now you  _ have _ to leave the room and go talk to Theo”, Mason, ever the logical voice, states with a shit eating grin on his face and Liam is seriously considering changing his best friend. 

Before Liam could say something back, Mason just claps him on the back and leaves like his work here is done, and it probably  _ is. _ But Liam's mind is still fixed on the fact that the pendant says  _ I love you  _ and Theo gave that pendant to  _ Liam, _ so, 

_ Theo loves Liam. _

_ Holy shit Theo loves him! _

Liam is suddenly glad that Mason left because he doesn't think his best friend would have bought the  _ something went in my eye _ excuse for the way his eyes are watering. Liam closes his fist around the pendant, turning his flashlight off and just thinks about Theo because,  _ what an emotionally constipated idiot,  _ and then with a jolt of pure  _ joy  _ thinks,  _ an emotionally constipated idiot that loves me. _

_ God, Liam loves him too. So much. _


	2. 2.

“You're being an idiot.”

“I am _not.”_

“Yes, you _are.”_

“Okay, maybe I am”, Theo concedes, sighing, falling back on Malia's bed to stare at the ceiling, and the fact that he just accepted the insult, worries her a little. The chimera has been here since morning because he had a fight about something–she doesn't know about what and not sure she _wants_ to know–with Liam and since then, all he's done is sulk in the coyote's room.

“Why won't you just _ask him?”_ Malia questions for the millionth time, standing at the end of the bed, arms crossed and looking completely _done_ with Theo's teenage angst-ing.

“Why would I _ask_ him, when I already know?”, Theo fires back.

“You don't know shit Theodore, you're _assuming.”_

“One, I've told you to stop calling me that and two, I _know_ because he wears that pendant, like _everywhere, all the time_. So he has to know by now.”

 _“One”,_ Malia starts, imitating Theo and ignoring the glare sent her way by him, “I've _told you_ , I'll only call you theodore. And two _,_ _it's_ _Liam,_ he probably still hasn't seen your genius, sneaky, love confession.”

“He's a little oblivious but he's not _that_ oblivious, lia.”

“He kind of is actually”.

When Theo just ignores her in favor of glaring at the ceiling, she comes forward to sit beside Theo on the bed and tries to reason with the chimera again, “But even if he _does_ know, why do you think him not saying anything means he doesn't love you back?”

“What else could it mean?”, Theo asks, but it comes out more in a pathetic whine.

“I don't know, maybe that he wants you to have some balls and say it to his face, like normal people do and not put it in a pendant that only shows the words _i love you_ when light falls on it from a very specific angle?”

“Okay. Fuck you. I thought it was romantic.”

“It is. It's disgusting.”

“It doesn't matter _now,_ he's breaking up with me.”, he replies miserably and Malia feels a small spark of anger towards Liam, she doesn't know exactly what the beta did but she’s never seen Theo this dejected.

“He's _not_ . You both had a stupid little fight like you always do, and you're gonna be fine and back to your gross selves by the end of the _day_ ”, Malia attempts to comfort him but Theo’s chemosignals just become more sour and twisted.

“No, it wasn't the same this time, lia. He's gonna come over here and break up with me or maybe he'll just do it over text. Maybe he picked the fight on purpose so he'll have an excuse to break up without bringing up the whole _pendant situation.”_

“Are you really calling it that now?”

Theo just sighs, ignoring her _again_ and Malia has had enough. Shooting a small, _definitely not threatening,_ text to the chimera’s boyfriend, she starts tugging at Theo's arm, dragging him out of her room.

“Okay if I listen to you whine a minute more, I am going to strangle you. So _,_ come on. We're going for a run.”

* * *

Theo won’t admit it but he actually feels a lot better after the run. There's always something calming, almost _liberating_ , about running through the preserve in his wolf form, wind rushing through his fur, paws hitting dirt and the natural scents of the preserve surrounding him. His thoughts are a little less negative and depressing but as soon as he hears a familiar car pull up in Malia's driveway, his heartbeat fastens, thoughts getting tangled up again. Malia's head pops up from where she was rummaging in the fridge for food and she looks over at him sitting on the island, momentarily frozen in place.

“You better go outside to meet him, I don't want to watch you two being mushy when I'm trying to eat.” Making a shooing motion towards the door, she just goes back to her hunt for snacks. Theo huffs at her and gets up to go towards the door, muscles still a bit too stiff with tension. 

Liam is about to climb the porch steps as Theo opens the door. For a moment they both just stare at each other lost in thought until– _“close the damn door theodore!”_

They both jump at Malia's loud voice coming from inside the house, and Theo snaps the door shut all the while cursing at Malia under his breath– _“I heard that!”_ _“you were meant to!”_

Liam shuffles around awkwardly as Theo slowly comes to stand beside him. 

“So”, Theo starts, but then stops, not knowing what to even _say._ He watches as Liam's eyes roam over his face and pinpoints the exact moment his expression becomes determined and suddenly he's in Theo's space, hands coming up to cup his face and soft lips crashing on Theo's own. Theo almost immediately kisses back, body completely melting under Liam's touch–all the tension just seeping out–and relief flooding his body because- 

“Judging by the way you're kissing me, I'm gonna talk a wild guess and say you're _not_ here to break up with me?” 

“ _Break up with you?”,_ Liam asks incredulously, face scrunching up in adorable confusion. “Why the _hell_ would you think that?” He inquires, pulling back from Theo.

And now Theo feels a little– _just a tiny bit_ –stupid because of the sheer disbelief in Liam's tone. So maybe he was being _a little_ dramatic.

“Well,” Theo starts, clearing his throat because now he has to give an explanation with the way Liam is looking expectantly at him, “You didn't- you didn't say anything about- ” , cutting himself off he just gestures vaguely at Liam's chest where the pendant is resting. 

Liam blinks. Looks towards the pendant, then back at Theo–who looks ready to run at a moment's notice–and then back at the pendant, finally seeming to connect the dots. Liam punches him on the shoulder.

“You asshole!” Theo groans holding his shoulder, as he continues, “Why didn't you just tell me?”

“So you _knew._ ”

“For like an hour! And I only found out accidentally.”

Theo blinks. “Malia was right. You really are oblivious.” And okay, maybe Theo deserved the next punch.

“Oh I'm sorry. Next time you give me a present I'll make sure to perform all kinds of tests on it. You know, just in case there's a hidden scroll in there with a secret confession!” 

Theo narrowed his eyes at the sarcasm _dripping_ from Liam's words.

“Give me a break. I've never seen you without it. So I thought you'd had to have seen it by now.”

“I do wear it but it's usually under my shirt. Not like it sees a lot of light.” Liam shrugs.

Sighing, Theo looked down at his feet, all _that_ and he still doesn't know if Liam loves him back. Noticing the change in his mood, Liam comes forward and takes both his hands in his. “T, you should've just told me and even if you didn't want to say it to my face, you could've just told me about the locket.”

“Yeah. I'm getting a feeling that might've been easier."

Liam takes his chin in hand then, making him look in his eyes. 

“I love you", He states so _casually_ like he didn't just freeze the next breath in Theo's lungs.

“ _You do?”_

“Of course I do, dumbass.”

“I love you too”, Theo whispers, smiling so _wide_ his cheeks hurt. Liam returns an equally wide smile as he leans in to kiss him, slow, sweet and _perfect_ . But then, since it's _Theo_ he _has_ to pull back and add, “Even if you hate pineapple on pizza.”

The smile on Liam's face freezes. 

“Hey Theo?”

“Yeah?”

“For the sake of our relationship, _never_ bring up the fact that you like pineapple on pizza, _ever_ again.”

Theo snorts. “Fair point. Wouldn't want a repeat of today's argument now, would we?”

“Definitely not”, Liam agrees, leaning back in to kiss him again but the front door slams open at that moment revealing Malia. She looks… positively murderous.

“Are you telling me,” She growls out each word slowly, “that i had to listen to Theo _whine_ for _hours_ because you two had a fight about _pineapple on pizza?!_

She nearly snarls the last words out, and looks at the both of them doing a very good impersonation of deers in headlights.

“Uhh…”

“Sunshine? I think it's time for us to leave”

“Yeah” , Liam agrees eagerly, both of them scrambling for his car. 

Theo calls out a quick _bye lia_ over his shoulder, leaving the werecoyote grumbling under her breath about _emotionally repressed assholes._

**Author's Note:**

> [ this is the necklace ](https://www.amazon.com/Inf-way-Necklace-Languages-Projection-Collarbone/dp/B07GCZQ2ZP)  
> but instead of the circle it's a sunflower, for anyone who's confused.


End file.
